If Trees Worried

Fall is my favorite season.  Besides the fact that I love pumpkin everything (and for the record, I loved pumpkin everything before it was trendy to love pumpkin everything), I love what happens with the trees in fall.  I love the brilliant reds, orange, and yellow of the leaves as they change color.  I love the way the fallen leaves fill my senses as I walk or bike along the tree lined paths- the crunching and rustling sounds as I move over the leaves, the musty, earthy smell of the leaves as they start to decay, the way the leaves fall from the trees and the way the wind makes them dance on the ground.

But for all the beauty in fall, there is also death.  Plants die, the grass and plants start to lose their green, and the trees shed their leaves leaving just the lifeless looking branches.

And here’s the thing: Donald Miller once wrote, “All the trees are losing their leaves, and not one of them is worried.”

I can’t say for sure that trees actually feel emotion, but if we can imagine for a few minutes that trees do indeed feel emotions we can learn something radical.

Leaves are the life source for trees.  Without leaves trees would have no way of gathering in the power of the sun in order to turn that sunlight into food to help the tree survive and grow.  So for a tree to lose its leaves means the loss of its ability to generate food and therefore is essentially a death sentence.  

I can imagine the first fall for a baby tree is pretty traumatic.

However, the trees don’t worry.  They put up no fight as their leaves gradually drop one by one to the ground.  The trees do not selfishly try to hold on to the leaves that are destined to break from the trees. 

Perhaps the trees know their worrying will do nothing to change the weather or the fact that their leaves are going to fall off.  Maybe they aren’t worried because they trust that spring will come again just like it has every other year.  The leaves fall and the leaves return.  It’s a cycle.  The leaves have to fall in order for them to grow in the spring and the leaves have to grow in the spring in order for them to fall. Even though it seems completely illogical and terrifying in the fall, the trees know the cycle and they trust. 

Here’s the real lesson though: trees do more than simply accept what could be viewed as a tragedy, they transform it into a spectacular display of color.

It is this stunning autumn spectacle that teaches me year after year that acceptance and trust are significant but it is through choosing to use our energy to bring about transformation that worry is truly defeated.